Fish Telecom

Dial-up FAQ

This page contains answers to the most Frequently Asked Questions about Fish Telecom Dial-Up. If the answer to your question isn't here then please email support with your question to support@fishtelecom.com.au so you can get a prompt reply.

Getting Started on Dial-Up

Usage

Billing

Getting Started on Dial-Up

Where do I get the Configuration Software so I can setup my computer for Fish Telecom?

fish.exeFish Telecom Dial Up Configuration Program (Windows only)
Click here to download the latest configuration program. Save it to a floppy disk or hard drive and run the program to reset your Fish Telecom Dial Up Configuration

What Operating Systems does Fish Telecom support?

You can dialup and connect to Fish Telecom from any operating system that supports a standard PPP dialup connection. However due to security issues with older operating systems Fish Telecom will only give telephone support for customers with computers running Windows XP and Windows 2000

How do I access my email?

Please see the Email settings page on information on accessing your email.

Can I dial up through the Sydney number?

Fish Telecom dialup is now avaliable through the entire country at the cost of a local call. Simply set your dialup number to 0198333849 and you will be able to dialup anywhere in the country.

Usage

Can i read my email accounts from the web in case I'm away from my home connection or interstate/overseas?

Yes. You can access all your emails through FishMAIL on the Fish Telecom web site.

How many email addresses do I get with Fish Telecom?

You can get up to five email addresses. Your first email address is automatic, connected to your selected username. To create more email addresses, login to the "My Account" section of our website.

Do I get any web site space?

No.

I'm getting undesirable emails? What can I do about it?

Ultimately the Internet is a public medium, and must be treated as such. In many instances, you may register on some website for genuine and legitimate information and then you begin to be bombarded with lewd and offensive material. Unfortunately many websites sell their email databases to organisations to gain financial benefit. Ultimately, there is no such thing as a free lunch.

In many instances the offending website allows you to 'Remove' yourself, but this in most times only exacerbates the situation as you are only confirming to the website owners that the email address they acquired on the sold database is in fact valid and correct. We'd advise against doing so.

As there is no worldwide legislation or Code of Practice on the Internet, there is not much you can really do but accept this situation and not share your email address with any website unless absolutely necessary. Most people leave bogus email addresses on these types of websites.

If you are receiving offending material through email, we may close that email address for you and re-open a new address for you to use. Contact support@fishtelecom.com.au to have this arranged should you require it.

People say they get 'bounced' messages when they send email to me? Why?

All email addresses have a total space of 10MB. This also includes all email sent and those stored in folders. Our email servers will automatically send bounce messages to email senders if the recipient on our server is over-quota. To avoid this from happening, make sure that Outlook Express is set to not store messages on the server (default is set correctly if you have executed our configuration disk), and if you are using Fishmail, try to limit what you store in any of the folders as all emails in Fishmail count towards your 10MB quota.

I need more email space? What can I do?

Unfortunately due to the thousands of email boxes on our mail servers, we are currently unable to change this regulation, and if you require further space we recommend you use a commercial email site (such as Yahoo) for this application, or if you are a business, purchase your own domain. No facilities are in place at this moment to acquire more mail space.

My Internet is very slow? What going on?

There is no straight forward answer to this one, as it can be caused by a number of factors. Listed below are a number of causes and resolutions:

ISP Related Issues: Systems Engineers at Fish Telecom make sure that data is plentiful at all times and we try to where possible eliminate the possibility of it being on the Fish side of things. An easy test for this is to test the speed of a large site on the Internet (like Google.com) and our main site Fish Telecom and see the speed difference. If they both come up at roughly the same time then the issue is not ISP Related however, if both struggle, then it is definately not ISP related as the Fish Telecom Web Servers are connected locally at 100Mbps (which is approximately 1750 times the speed of a standard 56K modem!). If the Fish Site comes up quickly, and the other site takes a considerable long time, then please call us to discuss further.

Telephone Line Condition: This tends to be a serious issue for many people. Any form of noise (ie crackling, echoing, buzzing) on your phone line, no matter how weak it may seem to you has detrimental effects to your Internet experience. Your line must be pristine for a fast and reliable internet experience. If you feel there is problems with your telephone line (especially after heavy rain falls) you may need to contact Telstra to have them correct the problem.

Call Waiting & Other Related Features: Call waiting and some other telephone features will certainly disconnect you from the Internet. Please de-activate them prior to establishing your Internet sessions.

Modems: Everyone believes that a modem is a modem. This is certainly not true. Modems are like vehicles, you can purchase a good quality one which will give you many many years of pleasure, and then you can also purchase one which will die at every instance. Please do not be fooled into thinking that all modems are the same, they most certainly are not. Consider wisely when purchasing a modem as you may end up spending many times over the price of the modem in phone calls to Telstra in the end. Many consumers also believe that ISP's in Australia are like those in the United Kingdom whereby ISP's receive a portion of the revenues collected from phone calls. This is certainly not the case in our instance, and we gain absolutely nothing in your local phone calls to our network. Our revenue is gained solely from the charges we charge our subscribers for their time online.

Internal vs External Modems: In the opinion of Fish Telecom, Internal Modems should only be used in instances where the line quality is pristine, and also where the location of the computer is within approximately 3km from its local Telstra telephone exchange. To our knowledge, these exchanges are located at: Helensburgh, Thirroul, Corrimal, Wollongong, Unanderra, Dapto, Albion Park and Kiama. In all instances, they are located in the centre of the Central Business District of these areas. If you are more than 3km away, please seriously consider an External modem.

Slow Computers: We have found anecdotally that there is a relationship between slow computers and slow internet & disconnections. Having said that, we have also discovered that external modems are relatively immune to disconnections on slow computers. Please bear in mind that having a slower performing computer will certainly affect your internet speed/connectivity.

Commonwealth Initiative: We are all committed in assisting you with improving your Internet experience. The Commonwealth Government in conjection with Telstra have produced an impressive web site that helps you with improving your Internet speed. Please consult this website along with the material outlined above in helping you make better choices and outcomes to these problems. It's located at http://www.iapselfhelp.com

I keep getting disconected? Why?

The main reasons for disconnections are listed above. However also bear in mind that we do also have an idle limit of approximately 20 minutes, and also session limits of 6 hours. This may also trigger your disconnections. Both are hard set in the network and we are not able to alter these policies.

Every time I send an email, I am disconnected!

Outlook Express has a "feature" which disconnects you automatically after sending or recieving an email. To check this, start Outlook Express and go to the Tools menu -> Options -> Connections tab, and change the setting "Hang up after sending and recieving" to off.

When I hit the send/recieve button on Outlook Express I receive the following message: Your server has unexpectedly terminated the connection. Possible causes for this include server problems, network problems, or a long period of inactivity. Account: 'Fish Telecom', Server: 'mail.fishinternet.com.au', Protocol: POP3, Port: 110, Secure(SSL): No, Error Number: 0x800CCC0F

Please re run the Fish Telecom Configuaration software (see above) to refresh all the Fish Telecom dial up/email parameters..

Billing

Do you have a facility for me to check how many Mb I've up/downloaded to date in the current month, or do i have to wait until I get the bill to discover I've exceeded the limit?

You can check your usage in the 'My Account' area. It updates every 10 minutes.

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Wollongong - Sydney - Melbourne